“Why, when your coat flew back I saw your badge, and that is how I told.”
“Why did you not tell your cousin to let up on me, if he is an honest man?”
“I suppose that I had ought to have done it, but he has been so much on the bragging line lately that I thought that I would see if he could really rastle. You looked like a husky chap, and I saw a chance to test him,” responded the woman, with a laugh.
Nick’s attention was now called to the man that he had thrown over into the pool of water.
The fellow had crawled out and was coming for Nick.
“I suppose you think that I am a durned fool. I was pretty hasty when I saw you,” he said.
“You were a bit hasty,” assented the detective, “but I think that you got as good as you gave, and so we will call it even.”
“Yes, I think, Mr. Officer, that you gave him a good deal better than he gave you, and I am right glad, as it will keep his mouth shet for a while,” put in Sallie.
“Women has too much to say in this day, so you had better take a reef in your jaw,” growled the fellow, as he scraped the mud off of his clothes.
Nick, upon questioning the man, found that he lived on a farm a few miles from Brooklyn, and that he had passed the scene of the murders each day as he went to market with his produce.